‘Finding truth for Indigenous people’

It’s All About the Land: Collected Talks and Interviews on Indigenous Resurgence
by Taiaiake Alfred

Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2023
$29.95  /  9781487552831

Reviewed by Kenneth Favrholdt

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I had never heard the term Indigenous Resurgence before. But by the end of Mohawk elder Taiaiake Alfred’s book of talks, speeches, interviews, and podcasts, as a non-native person I understood the meaning of decolonization and what he calls the transformative potential of the “Resurgence of Indigenous power” to revitalize cultures, traditions, laws, and value systems. As an immigrant settler, though, my connections are to people who do not have the roots that Indigenous people have.

It’s All About the Land is the culmination of Alfred’s long life of academic and activist involvement in the process of searching for wisdom and finding truth for Indigenous people.  Alfred talks at length about colonization and decolonization. “If colonization is defined as the intent to take land away, to impose foreign laws and to disrupt culture, if that defines colonization in 1609, it still pretty much defines the relationship today.” Alfred further states, “We’re not in a post-colonial society; we’re in a contemporary colonial society.”

Lawyer and activist Pam Palmater of the Mi’kmaw Nation states in her foreword about Taiaiake’s philosophy, “His call to action does not align with Canada’s reconciliation policies that downplay our sovereignty.” Ann Rogers, author of the book’s introduction, adds, “As the premier contemporary scholar of Indigenous strategies of resistance to the problem of Canadian colonialism, Alfred has advanced a radical agenda for decolonial struggle and emancipation.”  ‘Onkwehonweh’ is the first word of Rogers’ introduction, the name of the Original People of Turtle Island. The name ‘Taiaiake’ means “crossing over” which is fitting for Alfred’s journey between the Indigenous and the white people’s worlds.

As a Kahnawà:ke Mohawk, he has always been deeply connected to his roots and the struggles of Indigenous communities. Growing up in Quebec he witnessed firsthand the challenges at Oka in 1990 where reoccupation of Indigenous land was met with state violence.   

Alfred first obtained a BA in History at Concordia University in Montreal, embarking on a long career that would bridge the academic world with his practical activism. After a Masters and PhD at Cornell University in New York, he went to the University of Victoria where he became the founding director of the Indigenous Governance Program from 1999 to 2015 and Canada Research Chair from 2003 to 2007 during which time he nurtured a deep understanding of Indigenous issues, commanding a platform to voice his concerns and advocate for change. Later, he resigned from UVic in 2019, then joined the Kahnawà:ke governance project as their lead.

With several awards throughout his career, including a National Aboriginal Achievement/Indspire Award, and the Native American Journalists Association award for best column writing, Taiaiake has authored three other books – Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors: Kahnawake Mohawk Politics and the Rise of Native Nationalism (1995) based on his PhD dissertation, Peace Power Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifest (1999), and Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom (2005) which became the name of a movement based mainly in BC associated with the West Coast Warrior Society.

Alfred calls Indigenous Resurgence an emancipatory movement. “The key difference between this and reconciliation is that it does not ask Indigenous Peoples to reconcile themselves to living a colonized existence under an occupying power.” He adds, “Indigenous people are sick of hearing about reconciliation and land acknowledgements unless it’s directly tied to some sort of action on the part of the government or whoever’s offering those land acknowledgments to make some real, systemic changes, and not just acknowledge the harms of the past without doing anything about it.” 

The title of the book and cover photo are the underpinnings of Alfred’s argument – without restoring the connection to the land, Indigenous peoples will not regain their sovereignty and power. He dissects the reconciliation agenda promulgated by the Canadian government, revealing it as a new form of colonization—”one that, despite its good intentions, is destined to fail.” 

Canada’s Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, makes an interesting comment from his position: “Taiaiake’s work forces me to scrutinize and constantly question my actions and those of my government so as not to reproduce the horrific social experiment that has devastated Indigenous peoples.”

About residential schools, Taiaiake strongly asserts, “the real intent of residential school was to prevent Nations of people from connecting to the land, to remove children so that the next generation would not know the land…” This he says was the intent that’s not being addressed. “Everybody likes the idea of reconciliation as a concept,” Taiaiake asserts, “but as it’s being developed and applied in Canada, it’s a problem,” and he adds, “even a manifestation of contemporary colonialism.”

Canada is all about the land and Indigenous Resurgence cannot be realized without the ties to the land that belong to First Nations.  But Alfred states, “Our vision was that there would be white people standing there with us. There would be white people who recognize that Canada needs to be changed fundamentally.”  Apropos to this is Alfred’s description of the Two-Row Wampum belt and its meaning in relation to treaties, and the well-known maxim, “we are all treaty people.”

In closing, Ann Rogers, editor of the book, and a settler on Stz’uminus territory, formerly known as the Chemainus Indian Band on Vancouver Island, provides a unique description of the media of oration and the printed word, explaining,  “Taiaiake follows Onkwehonweh traditions of orality where both speaking and listening are taken seriously: people are brought together as witnesses and participants, as opposed to a more capitalist framing of passive audiences consuming information and entertainment.”

Alfred indicates that Indigenous peoples around the world, not just Canada, face an existential choice: reconnect with their authentic cultures and values or continue following a path of cultural annihilation. He closes his book with what he calls four intuitions about fixing the problem: First, how do we sustain ourselves? – “We have to be able to feed ourselves independently in order to assert any type of autonomy from the state.” Secondly, “…by sticking to an ethic of nonviolence and by sticking to a militant pacifism, … we can move forward.” Third, coming back to the title of the book, Alfred states, “We’ve got to get out there and start asserting ourselves on the land. We have to reconnect with the places that we say in our textbooks are sacred. We have to get out there and start using the land and find out what it can teach us.” And lastly, acquiring skennen, “a revolution of the spirit”– referring to peace of mind. Alfred states, “The central fact is that the politics, traditionally, for Indigenous Peoples, and my own people, Haudenosaunee, is to achieve that state” [of skennen].

Alfred’s 320-page work is a complex and profound set of readings that takes time to distill. He shows his deep knowledge and love of history in many parts of the book. Fifteen chapters of speeches, essays, and interviews cover a span of almost two decades from 2005 to 2022, from Vancouver to Melbourne, Australia, from Kingston to Montreal, and beyond. There are detailed notes and source credits for each chapter with their different themes. It’s a book that demands a careful reading and is essential at this time.

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Kenneth Favrholdt is a freelance writer, historical geographer, and museologist with a BA and MA (Geography, UBC), a teaching certificate (SFU), and certificates as a museum curator. He spent ten years at the Kamloops Museum & Archives, five at the Secwépemc Museum and Heritage Park, four at the Osoyoos Museum, and he is now Archivist of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc. He has written extensively on local history in Kamloops This Week, the former Kamloops Daily News, the Claresholm Local Press, and other community papers. Ken has also written book reviews for BC Studies and articles for BC History, Canadian Cowboy Country Magazine, Cartographica, Cartouche, and MUSE (magazine of the Canadian Museums Association). He taught geography courses at Thompson Rivers University and edited the Canadian Encyclopedia, geography textbooks, and a commemorative history for the Town of Oliver and Osoyoos Indian Band. Ken has undertaken research for several Interior First Nations and is now working on books on the fur trade of Kamloops and the gold rush journal of John Clapperton, a Nicola Valley pioneer and Caribooite. He lives in Kamloops. [Editor’s note: Kenneth Favrholdt has recently reviewed books by Wayne McCrory, Michael Hood & Tom Jenkins, Rueben George with Michael Simpson, Jo Chrona, Marc G. Stevenson, and George H. S. Duddy for The British Columbia Review.]

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The British Columbia Review

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Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, Maria Tippett, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster